We use cookies to help make this website better, to improve our services and for advertising purposes. By accepting this message or continuing to browse our site you agree to accept cookies. To find out more read our Cookie Policy.Accept

PayPal: API Setup

Set up your PayPal Premier or Business account to synchronise with your FreeAgent account, and enable Express Checkout for receiving invoice payments online.

With API access enabled, your PayPal transactions will automatically appear in your account, without you having to download the transactions from PayPal and then upload them into FreeAgent.

Before you can enable this you will have to edit some settings in your PayPal account.

Granting API access to FreeAgent through PayPal

Once logged in at www.PayPal.com, select the Profile link on the far right of the navigation:

In the left-hand navigation, select My Selling Preferences

Under the Selling Online section, select Update next to the API Access option:

Select the Grant API Permission link:

On the Add New Third Party Permissions screen, enter freeagent_paypal_api1.freeagentcentral.com and select Lookup:

Select the following 5 options from the resulting screen:

Enabling in FreeAgent

'Edit' your PayPal account from the Banking section and look for the 'Additional Features for Premier or Business accounts' options.

Select from the checkbox options to 'Enable Automatic Feeds', including whether you want FreeAgent to guess transaction explanations, and 'Enable Express Checkout'.

Foreign currency transactions

FreeAgent can account for any income you receive through foreign currency PayPal transactions.

If you’ve set up your PayPal account to automatically convert foreign currency transactions into your FreeAgent base currency*, you should set up a single PayPal account in FreeAgent in that currency. You can do this by navigating to Banking and choosing ‘PayPal’ from the ‘Add new’ drop-down menu and completing the account details. Your converted transactions will then import and will be posted to your accounts as normal.

If you hold multiple foreign currency balances in PayPal, you will need to set up separate accounts in FreeAgent (one for each currency) and choose the appropriate currency when you complete the details for each account.

FreeAgent will only import PayPal transactions that are in the relevant currency for each of your PayPal accounts in FreeAgent, so all your foreign currency transactions will feed through to their respective accounts separately.

How FreeAgent accounts for foreign currency transactions

FreeAgent automatically accounts for your foreign currency PayPal transactions in the base currency of your FreeAgent account, using the latest exchange rate on xe.com. This means that the figures on your accounting reports (such as your balance sheet and profit and loss report), and the figures you see on your overview screen will be displayed in your base currency. FreeAgent revalues your accounts every day against the current exchange rate and updates your converted figures accordingly.

*If you have a UK account, your base currency will be GBP, if you have a US FreeAgent account, it will be US dollars, and if you have a Universal account, it will be the currency you selected when you first set up your FreeAgent account.